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National Library of Israel

Making a national archive personal: a country’s history told through the people who lived it.

Client
National Library of Israel
Role
Design, Experience
Disciplines
Design / Narrative / Experience Design
Collaborators
Shortcut Playground
A reading gallery at the National Library of Israel: archival documents in lit vitrines beneath a stone volume.

The challenge

Tell the nation’s rich history through the personal stories of its people, drawing on an archive of letters, diaries, photographs and art.

The idea

Combine archival content, illustration and imagery into a clean environment that complements the narrators rather than competing with them.

The system

A multi-format approach combining live footage, graphic design, illustration, sound and animation into one coherent narrative.

The outcome

Produced for the National Library of Israel as one narrative across live footage, archival material, illustration, sound and animation: the nation’s archive told through the voices of the people in it.

Role & contribution

I designed the visual environment and shaped how archival material, illustration and live footage came together around the narrators.
A dark gallery with low seating facing a large projection of a narrator beside an archival book cover.
The room is built for sitting and listening, with the archive placed next to the person telling the story.
A wall-height projection of Arabic manuscript handwriting in white on black, a narrator standing beside a page from the archive.
Original manuscripts are used at architectural scale, so the source material sets the tone rather than the design.
An interface of three portraits above archival books, linked by fine coloured lines on black.
Navigation is by person: a country’s history entered through the individuals who lived it.
Film

The narrative film for the National Library of Israel, combining live footage of narrators with archival letters, diaries, photographs and illustration.

Credits

Creative Agency: Shortcut Playground

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